Judith Wellman

Although the subtitle refers to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Road to Seneca Falls is both a history of the 1848 Woman's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, NY, which started the 19th century/early 20th century woman's rights movement, and a history of the reform movements occurring in the “burned-over” district of New York State during the early/mid 19th century. These other movements including anti-slavery, various religious controversies and splits in religious bodies, New York State’s efforts in legal reform concerning women including the Married Woman’s Property Act, and, to a lesser degree, temperance led to fertile ground for the woman's rights convention. Since Elizabeth Cady Stanton was not involved in some of these other reform movements, she was not discussed in a large portion of the book.

Ms. Wellman provides a good general history of the reform movements and the people involved in them. She is good at discussing the changes in society during the nineteenth century, and the conflicts resulting from these changes, both socially and politically.

The author is particularly skillful at discussing the preparation for and the Seneca Falls convention itself and the follow-up woman’s rights convention in Rochester, NY, two weeks later. She analyzes in detail the background of the people who signed the Declaration of Sentiments at both conventions – an important feature of this book.

I enjoyed the book, but felt it needed some additional editing. Several important facts concerning Elizabeth Cady Stanton are unnecessarily repeated, and Ms. Wellman tended to refer to both Elizabeth Cady Stanton and her husband Henry B. Stanton merely as Stanton; sometimes one needed to look carefully at the context to determine which person was being discussed. Also, a separate bibliography would have been useful since full citations are difficult to find in the detailed endnotes.… (plus d'informations)